Thursday, April 9, 2009

I'd intended to announce this much sooner, but the news first of Dave Arneson's turn for the worse, followed soon thereafter by his death, gave me pause. I continue to believe that Dave was one of the great unsung heroes of this hobby. It's a pity he wasn't more well known and regarded before he passed away. If there's any consolation to my having announced his death several hours early, it's that he might have had the chance to see how beloved he was by many of us. I like to think that he embarked on his greatest adventure knowing that he'd done good in his life and touched more people's lives in a positive way than he could ever have known.

I don't want to take anything away from the focus on Dave and his accomplishments. He deserves all the attention and accolades he'll be receiving in the coming days and weeks. That's why I initially planned to hold off on getting Megadungeon.net up and running this week, as I'd originally intended. But then I realized that, as "the innovator of the 'dungeon adventure' concept," there was probably no better time to launch this new project. Dave Arneson is the patron saint of, among other things, dungeons. He's the original Dungeon Master, the creator of the first dungeon ever published in an official D&D product from TSR. How better to honor his legacy than to begin a new dungeon? Amityville Mike of The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope seems to agree with me.

Megadungeon.net will be dedicated to Dave Arneson's memory. I have several ideas about how I plan to do so, but I'm going to take some time to sort through them all. The megadungeon of Urheim is going to grow slowly and organically anyway, so there's no rush in settling on a fitting memorial to the co-creator of D&D.

At present, what you'll find at Megadungeon.net is the structure on which the whole project will be constructed. There are maps, background information, introductions -- overview material, by and large. The "meat" of Urheim will start appearing over the next few days. I encourage anyone who wishes to add to it to send me their ideas and I'll do my best to include them somewhere in the dungeon, with attribution. I've already posted some rumors I received from readers. If you'd like the attribution to include a link to a website, blog, or email address, please let me know and I'll make sure the site is updated accordingly.

I sincerely hope that Urheim will grow immensely with the help of others and that the end result will be something that pays tribute to the "founder of our feast," Dave Arneson, without whom none of us would be here.

Thanks to everyone for pointing out the typos and little snags that need correcting. I'll get to those over the next day or so, along with the first batch of content. If you see anything else that needs fixing, post it here, please, or send me an email. I can't guarantee I'll get to correcting everything immediately, but I'll try my best to see to it within 24 hours.

It looks like it's off to a good start, James. You're sure to see some stuff headed your way from me in the near future to help with the build.

Thank you for the link and thanks again for deciding to go live with megadungeon.net today. I went back and forth myself about posting the Fane today simply because I didn't want it to misconstrued as an attempt to capitalize on Dave's passing. In the end, I knew that my intentions were pure and that I meant to honor Dave in the only way I could. I hope Dave would have wanted us to keep playing, keep creating, and keep up the comraderie at the game table even if he couldn't be here with us. I'm glad you felt that way too.

If anything of mine will fit in your megadungeon, I humbly submit it to your project.I'm trying to include everything I'm sent in some way or other. It may take a while, since I'm building up slowly and trying not to let the project overwhelm me.

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